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Natchilingmiutut
ᓇᑦᕠᓕᖕᒥᐅᑐᑦ
Native to	Canada
Region	Western Nunavut
Ethnicity	Netsilik Inuit
Language family	Eskaleut Eskimo Inuit Inuvialuktun Natchilingmiutut
Early forms	Proto-Eskimo–Aleut Proto-Eskimo Proto-Inuit
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	nets1241
Inuit dialects. (Broader) Netsilik is the dark green in the centre.
Natsilingmiutut is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Natchilingmiutut (ᓇᑦᕠᓕᖕᒥᐅᑐᑦ), Netsilik /ˌnɛtˈsɪlɪk/, Natsilik, Nattilik, Netsilingmiut, Natsilingmiutut, Nattilingmiutut, or Nattiliŋmiutut is an Inuit language variety spoken in western Nunavut, Canada, by Netsilik Inuit.

Natchilingmiutut (ᓇᑦᕠᓕᖕᒥᐅᑐᑦ 'people from Natchilik') came from natsik 'seal' + postbase -lik 'place with something' + postbase -miut 'inhabitants of'.

Classification

• There are three main dialect divisions of Natsilingmiutut dialect:
  • Natsilik subdialect, or Natsilik/Netsilik proper
  • Arviligjuaq subdialect
  • Illuiliq subdialect

Special letters

Natsilik dialect has the special letters: ⟨š ř ŋ⟩, used by some Nattiliŋmiut speakers.

š – sounds a bit like English "shr" and is distinct from both the s sound that is used in words borrowed from English and the more common h sound.

ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ Uqšuqtuuq 'Gjoa Haven'

ᒥᒃᓵᓄᑦ mikšaanut 'about'

ᓯᒃᓯᒃ hikšik 'ground squirrel, marmot'

New encodings in Unicode were proposed for the Inuktitut syllabics corresponding to š and h. These 12 syllabic characters for Nattilingmiutut were included in version 14.0 of the Unicode Standard on 14 September 2021, are now formally part of the Standard and are stable to use for digital text exchange. However, updates to system level syllabics fonts and keyboards to access the characters are underway and forthcoming.

ř (in Inuktitut syllabics ᖬ řa ᖨ ři ᖪ řu ᖭ řaa ᖩ řii ᖫ řuu) – sounds like an English (retroflex) r. It is distinct from the r sound used by other dialects, which is closer to the r sound made in French at the back of the throat.

ᐃᖨ iři 'eye' (cf. Inuktitut ᐃᔨ iji)

ᐅᒡᖪᒃ ugřuk 'bearded seal' (cf. Inuktitut ᐅᒡᔪᒃ ugjuq)

ᑭᐅᖪᖅ kiuřuq 's/he replies, answers' (cf. Inuktitut ᑭᐅᔪᖅ kiujuq)

ᐊᐱᕆᖪᖅ apiriřuq 's/he asks' (cf. Inuktitut ᐊᐱᕆᔪᖅ apirijuq)

ŋ – A small number of Inuktitut-speakers use this character instead of ng. The use of ng is deceiving because it makes use of two letters to represent what is a single sound. In syllabics this sound is represented by a single character ᖕ. Using this letter also makes the distinction between the sequence and long clearer, the first being spelled nŋ (ᓐᖕ) and the latter ŋŋ (ᖖ). In eastern varieties of Inuktitut which do not have the sequence , long is spelled nng (ᖖ) rather than ngng (ᖕᖕ). When the letter ŋ is not used, the distinction may be made by spelling n'ng and nng.

ᐊᕕᓐᖓᖅ avinŋuaq (avin'nguaq) 'lemming'

ᑭᙵᖅ kiŋŋaq (kinngaq) 'mountain'

Comparison

References

1. Supporting the Natchilingmiutut dialect
2. Natchilik language tools
3. "Netsilik". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
4. "Preserving Inuit Dialects in Nunavut, January 2005" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
5. Teacher devises special syllabics for Nattilingmiutut
6. "Home". tusaalanga.ca.
7. Why does Nattiliŋmiut have special letters?
8. ^ cf. Proposal to encode 16 additional characters to the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (30 September 2020)

v t e Eskaleut languages
Aleut	Aleut Mednyj Aleut
Eskimoan	Inuit Greenlandic Kalaallisut Tunumiit Inuktitut North Baffin Inuttitut Inuktun Inuvialuktun Siglitun Aivilik Inuinnaqtun Kangiryuarmiutun Kivalliq Netsilik Utkuhiksalik Iñupiaq (Iñupiaq Braille) Qawiaraq Uummarmiutun Yupik Alutiiq Central Alaskan Yugtun Nunivak Cup'ig Chevak Cup’ik Central Siberian Chaplino St. Lawrence Island Naukan Sirenik
See also	Proto-Eskaleut Proto-Eskimoan Inuktitut syllabics (writing system) Inuit phonology Inuit grammar Kaktovik numerals Yugtun script
Italics indicate extinct languages 1: The Inuit language 'family' is a continuum of dialects 2: Some linguists classify Sirenik as under a separate branch

• Agglutinative languages
• Indigenous languages of the North American Arctic
• First Nations languages in Canada
• Inuit languages
• Inuktitut words and phrases